


can't you see i'm the blue in your skies?

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: April Fools' Day, Crushes, M/M, Miscommunication, Tour Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Burying his fingers in the scruff around Loki's neck, not quite meeting Louis's eyes, Liam takes a deep breath and, reminding himself that, as it's April Fools Day, he can pass it off as a joke if Louis reacts badly, says, "I've got to be honest with you, Tommo, I think about kissing you an awful lot."</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't you see i'm the blue in your skies?

**Author's Note:**

> this is "canon compliant" in that it follows their schedule and their dogs and tattoos but uh, el and dani are off somewhere being girlfriends to each other and not louis and liam in this and this is absolutely not based on any kind of actual factual reality. this is a work of fiction.
> 
> thank you to the love of my life [caitlin](http://sansacakes.tumblr.com) for reading the cell phone pictures i took of my notebook while i was hastily scribbling this down today and for encouraging me through the transcribing of it. baby, you're my fiveever girl :*

The fact that it's April first gives Liam the courage he's been lacking. He and Louis are alone on the upper level of the bus, roughhousing with Loki, while Zayn naps and Harry and Niall watch Game of Thrones below.

Louis is rolling a ball at Loki and grinning, face bright and still a little red from the sunburn he got in Oman, and Liam's stomach just clenches up tight with how much he loves this beautiful improbable boy. Burying his fingers in the scruff around Loki's neck, not quite meeting Louis's eyes, Liam takes a deep breath and, reminding himself that he can pass it off as a joke if Louis reacts badly, says, "I've got to be honest with you, Tommo, I think about kissing you an awful lot."

Louis's face shutters closed so fast that Liam starts to feel sick. "Are you fooling?" he asks, and then says, "You're fooling, right?" voice reedy-thin, hand clenching around the soft toy ball.

"Well," Liam says, drawing the word out, because he can't figure out by Louis's inscrutable expression which type of answer will do the least damage.

Louis nods once, sharply. "That's what I thought," he says, pushing himself up off the floor and walking away.

Liam's world starts to fracture around him, shattering more and more with each and every step Louis takes. Loki whines, so Liam tightens his grip around the dog. "Me too," he mumbles, and pulls him closer in for a doggy cuddle.

Even Loki licking Liam's nose doesn't make him feel better.

+++

It's not like Liam was particularly expecting Louis to say "good, me too," and pull him in for a bit of a snog. It was more of a wish, really, a wild, desperate hope. He just hadn't expected Louis to react that _sharply_.

So if a few tears leak out from the corners of his eyes while he holds a squirming Loki close to his chest, that's... well. It's okay, because getting a bit emotional has come to be expected – encouraged, even – within the band, and Liam can get past this. He can. He just needs to be able to feel sad for a little while.

But Liam hasn't got time to wallow. He's got to be ready to sing tonight, and he's got to be okay around Louis tonight, too, because their fans can smell the tiniest emotional shifts between him and his bandmates far better than sharks have ever been able to smell blood in the water.

So he lets Loki wriggle free of his hold and wipes his eyes with a frustrated dash of his shirt sleeve, wincing as the rough cotton rubs against his fresh tattoo.

He definitely doesn’t compare the feeling to how Louis ran careful fingers around the edge of the tattoo when they first met up again after their week apart, fingertips pressing lightly into the skin of Liam's arm, examining the contrast of the ink and the delicate lines within the feather. His stomach definitely doesn't swoop and fall at the memory, and he most certainly does not catch himself grasping at his own wrist, trying, on some level, to recreate the memory.

April fools.

Liam makes his way down the bus's stairs, following Loki. Technically, since they're performing in London today, they could be at home or in any number of their usual haunts, but they'd wanted to be together before the concert – which is nothing unusual; they always want to spend more time together – so they're all in the bus with two hours till they're due to get to the O2 arena.

Two hours to figure out how to fix this Louis situation.

Liam bites his lower lip, takes a deep breath, and heads out from the tiny stairwell into the main gathering area of the bus. 

Louis has his head tucked in next to Harry's, and they're whispering over the episode of Game of Thrones playing on the tv, while Niall eats salt and vinegar Walkers out of a bag by the handful, seemingly ignoring the conversation. Zayn is awake now, texting like crazy but clearly listening to the conversation, which stops as soon as Louis notices Liam stood in the front of the room.

His gaze goes brittle, accusatory, and he lifts himself up off their massive couch using just his core muscles. Which pretty much means that Liam is caught between worry and anguish _and_ a low, traitorous thrum of arousal in the pit of his stomach.

"Think I'll try to get some rest," Louis announces, hesitating and then turning to go. "Later, lads."

Loki trots off after him. Liam tries not to feel betrayed.

+++

Harry gets up too, pushing himself up off the couch with his hands and reaching up to brace himself against the movement of the tour bus by pressing his palms against the ceiling.

"Talk with me, Liam," he says, which – well. The way that he and Louis were curled into each other, whispering, the way that Harry's not really giving him an option to talk – it speaks volumes about how upset Louis truly is.

Liam honestly did not expect this strong of a reaction from Louis. At best, he had hoped for Louis to agree with him, to kiss him. At worst, an emotionally devastating but well-intentioned laugh, if Liam had ended up needing to pass it off as an April fools joke. Not this total shutting down. Liam wouldn't have intentionally jeopardised anything between them but his own feelings.

"Really?" Harry says, when he and Liam are mostly out of earshot of everyone. It's all he says. 

Liam isn't sure whether Harry is asking if he really wants to kiss Louis or whether Liam really would joke about wanting to kiss him. Either way, Harry _knows_ Liam, should know the kinds of things Liam would and would not do. So he levels a stare at Harry, because he's incredibly aware that his face is an open book, that he can't disguise his emotions at all. Especially around the band.

Harry has the decency to look repentant. "I know," he says. 

Liam wonders which question his face just answered, but he doesn't ask, because when it comes down to it, he's not sure that he actually wants to _know_. So he just says, "Yeah," and shrugs.

"Come here, Payne," Harry says, and tugs Liam into a tight hug. Tucking his head into Liam's neck, he whispers, "Be careful with Louis, yeah?"

"I've never had to before," Liam says, because the best part about Louis – one of the many best parts – is how he can be totally completely on hundred percent himself around Louis and not worry about how that might be taken.

"Just... with this, do," Harry says, and then he disentangles his body from Liam's and goes to flop back on the couch, leaving Liam more confused than ever.

+++

Liam flops down next to Zayn and peers over his shoulder just long enough to see that he's texting Perrie. "She liking America?" he asks.

Zayn nudges over until he's resting his head on Liam's shoulder. "Having a blast," he says. "She and Jesy are joking about insisting on opening for us there but Leigh obviously wants none of that."

Liam laughs, then sighs. He and Louis are sporty together. They have fun together. Louis gives him absolute butterflies in the pit of his stomach and makes him feel positively ill when they're performing next to each other and Louis looks over at him, laughing and golden and lovely, and starts to do the Joe or mimes another lyric change at Harry or tackles someone to the floor. He's great for conversation too, and Liam has had many, many heart to hearts with him, but he knows that Zayn has had more of those, just like Harry has had more quiet, domesticated moments with Louis than he has, and Niall and Louis have spent more time unwinding over beers and conversation. It's just the nature of their relationships. 

It also means that Zayn might have some insight. "I know you were listening," he says, because for all that Zayn likes to draw into himself and watch from the sidelines when they have down time, he also likes to know exactly what is going on with everyone in the band as much as possible. "What do you think?"

Zayn purses his lips and puts his phone down. "You like him, yeah?"

"Too much," Liam says, deadly quiet.

"Right," Zayn says, and he stares out at the tv, not noticing anything about the dragons on the screen, for a very very long moment. Then: "Could be you're misunderstanding each other."

"Don't know if Lou is more upset that I want to kiss him or because he thinks I would joke about wanting to kiss him," Liam says. "Don't know if he's upset because he wants to kiss me or because he absolutely does _not_."

Zayn takes his phone out again. "Only he can tell you that, mate," he says. "I think you've just got a bit of a miscommunication."

"Obviously," Liam says. He doesn't know how to fix it, is the thing, but he figures that talking to Louis again would be a good start, so he pats Zayn's thigh a couple of times in thanks and gets up to go find him.

+++

Louis is lying on his bunk with his eyes wide open, Loki curled up on his pillow next to his head, but when he notices Liam walk in, he turns to the wall.

"Louis," Liam says, clenching his hands into desperate fists and then forcing himself to relax them. "Louis, talk to me."

But Louis doesn't say anything, and that's so weird in and of itself that Liam has to swallow against a sudden lump in his throat. He honestly can't think of any time – at least not within the past year – that Louis refused point-blank to so much as speak to him. 

He doesn't want to jump to conclusions, he really doesn’t. But the way that Louis won't even meet his eyes makes Liam so sure that Louis is completely repulsed by the very idea of kissing him. Which – Liam knows it's not because he's a boy, so. It must be because he's _him_.

"Louis, please," he says, noting with chagrin the way that he can _hear_ the sob in his voice. 

Louis doesn't look back, so Liam leaves the room.

+++

Niall takes one look at Liam's face and pulls him in, leaving smudges of crisps grease on belt loops, until Liam is sprawled half over his lap.

"You two will figure it out," he says, and when Liam shrugs, miserably, he kisses Liam's cheek, smackingly loud and slobbery until Liam can't help but smile a tiny smile, and then Niall grins and, with one eyebrow raised deviously, twists in and starts to tickle Liam until he's shouting with uncontrollable laughter, tears of mirth seeping out of the corner of his eyes, and Zayn and Harry give up on watching tv and texting other people and join in.

There's a tiny sound across the room and Liam looks up. Louis is stood there, eyes shadowed with some kind of emotion, arms crossed.

The laughter dies in Liam's throat. Louis looks so lovely and gorgeous and _sad_ and just the littlest bit wistful, but he still doesn't say anything, and it bloody breaks Liam's heart.

+++

They have five minutes before they need to go on stage and Liam is in his first outfit, waiting to head up, when Louis walks up.

"That was a dirty trick," he says, and Liam is just so happy to hear him _talk_ again that he almost doesn't mind the anger in Louis's voice. 

"I," Liam starts, but he falls silent, because he isn't sure exactly how he wants to phrase this. He just knows that he has to say _something_ , and _soon_ , because they're about to go on, but he doesn't want to fuck this up, especially if Louis is so angry because he absolutely does not want to think about kissing Liam – however much it hurts to even _think_ that, particularly because Liam used to catch Louis watching him from afar, when he didn't think anyone was watching, looking like he was contemplating... something. And Liam had thought – or hoped – that it was because Louis wanted to maybe kiss him too, rather than because he was thinking about what a sad sack Liam was, and with such a hopeless unrequited crush on him. But maybe he was wrong. He has to be wary of that possibility.

But there, Liam has spent so long puzzling over what to say he's let the silence stretch on for far too long and the corners of Louis's mouth are turning down again. "I didn't realise you knew," Louis says, voice harsh with what, after nearly three years, Liam can clearly identify as hurt. "But that was absolutely not on, Liam, I'm very upset with you."

Liam's stomach clenches hard and he feels a little like he's going to be sick all over their backstage area, but a tiny little part of his brain lights up and just like that his stomach clenches again, in an entirely different but no less nauseating way, because maybe this means Louis wants to kiss him, too.

But then the rest of the lads are piling in around them and they're about to go on and he has no time to say anything, so he just casts a desperate look at Louis and tries to think of how to just be entirely honest, and quickly, because he hates it when Louis is hurt and when Louis is not pleased with him and he wants to _fix_ this.

For now, though, he has to somehow open up their entire concert by singing about living in fast forward without his voice breaking.

+++

The thing is, when Liam first met Louis, he couldn't help but focus on how different they are.

These days, though, he can't help but think about how similar they are, too (and how wonderful it would be to kiss Louis hard on the lips before going to bed together every night, instead of just sharing the cheek kisses and lip pecks that are common currency within their band, but that's beside the point).

They both are extremely physical people and they both express themselves best physically. Or, well, Louis has his biting wit and a way with words that makes Liam dissolve with laughter on the best of days and want to cry his eyes out on the worst, and after being in a band together for ages with an unconscious agreement to talk things out before they can become capital-T Things, Liam knows that both of them are good at communicating and at expressing themselves verbally, too. 

But when there's some raw emotion that needs to be worked out, both he and Louis do better working themselves to physical exhaustion, whether it's running top speed after a football, or biking through London, or climbing as high as they can up the tallest tree in their area when they're supposed to be filming a new video, or racing laps in hotel pools.

It's especially evident tonight, because Louis keeps literally running into Harry and Niall and toppling them – gently, in Niall's case – to the stage and flailing about until Liam _knows_ he's going to actually bruise himself. And Liam is doing the same thing, racing across the stage and jumping from several steps up over and over again and pulling Zayn and Niall down on top of him when he decides to roll about on the floor even though Zayn generally steers clear of their most physical on-stage roughhousing. 

And it's even working a little bit – Liam is feeling the exertion in his muscles and it's finally letting him relax enough to sing his best, finally. He doesn’t even tense back up on their first costume change, because it's too fast for him and Louis to get close enough to talk anyway, but when they strap in to get to their second stage, Louis doesn't stand next to him and he starts buzzing with nerves again.

And then, almost before he knows it, it's time for the twitter questions.

+++

Liam could honestly kiss Amanda from row C in section 121 on the mouth, and for the first time in four hours, he starts to feel okay again, because there on the screen in huge letters is the question _HAVE YOU DONE ANY GOOD APRIL FOOLS PRANKS TODAY?_ and, suddenly, he has a plan.

He lets Niall talk about how he mixed mayonnaise in with Zayn's hair product (and then collapse under the way that Zayn leaps up onto his back). After that, he plans on speaking up and saying his piece, but Louis steps up next instead, and says something about his morning announcement that he was going to leave the band to join the Wanted – and Liam had almost forgot about that. It feels like it happened closer to a year ago, not the ten hours it's actually been – and sighs a little bit before straightening up, pasting on a grin that looks forced even from six feet away, and says, "And as for our very own Liam Payne, well."

"I'm afraid I've been a bit of a wet blanket this year," Liam interrupts, because he feels in his gut that Louis was about to say something radically misinterpreted and distressingly untrue. "I did think about dyeing Harry's eyebrows blond while he was asleep –"

"Heyyyyy," Harry protests, frowning deeply.

"– but," Liam continues. He looks straight at Louis, staring directly at him silently until Louis actually meets his gaze. "I didn't even start pulling any pranks on any of my band members today. I didn't come close at all. Sorry."

Louis's eyes widen and he takes a physical step back, mouth slack and open. Around them, Liam distantly registers the way that Harry, bless him, is answering the question with some kind of long drawn-out story that Liam is about ninety percent sure is meant to distract the audience from the way that Louis is looking at Liam like his world is falling apart and coming back together all at once.

Harry starts reading off where Amanda is sitting and peering around the arena to try and spot her area, and Louis walks carefully up to Liam's side, wrapping an arm around the small of Liam's back while he waves in Amanda's general direction.

Liam feels all shuddery and hot inside, and he worries that he's going to start crying in about ten seconds no matter what happens.

"Really?" Louis whispers, leaning in close and angling his mic away from their faces. "Truly, that wasn't a joke?"

"Really, truly," Liam says back, low and fast and serious. "I'm sorry if you don't like that, but. Yeah."

Louis nods once, seriously, and then he has to step away to take his own question, but he lets his hand draw against the small of Liam's back, fingers lingering at Liam's waist so, so briefly before he clears his throat and starts reading.

+++

"So," Louis says, when they're in the middle of their final costume change. "You know how I was avoiding you for most of the afternoon?"

"It honestly made me want to be sick all over the bus," Liam says, pulling his shirt on and checking to make sure that it sits right on his frame. 

"Yeah," says Louis. "About that. April fools!"

Liam levels a glare at him, mostly mocking but still a little honestly hurt. "Lou..."

Louis sighs. "Yeah," he says. "I should've known that you wouldn't pull something like that with me."

"Yes," Liam says seriously, patting his hair back into place from where his shirt flattened it a bit. "You really should have."

"I've just been so hung up on you for so long that I was terrified you were taking the piss," Louis blurts, not quite meeting Liam's eyes. "Wouldn't've been the first time someone's done that to me."

And there's verbal confirmation. Liam feels like the ground has been knocked out from underneath him, but in a good way. A seriously good way. Later, maybe, he'll remember to be angry at the people who have hurt Louis before, but for now – for now, he hooks two fingers through one of Louis's belt loops to anchor himself upright, just in case. "I've been hung up on you for ages too," he says, quietly. 

Louis crowds in closer, right up into Liam's personal space in a way that makes Liam's palms sweat like they haven't done since Louis first started his campaign to familiarise Liam with close physical contact. He looks seriously up at Liam, then knocks their foreheads together. "We have to go on soon," he whispers, resting a hand firmly on one of Liam's hips.

"The lads are literally in the same room as us," Liam responds, a smile starting to tug at his lips.

"Is that a challenge?" Louis asks. Liam feels, more than sees, the way that Louis raises his eyebrows with that question.

Instead of responding – they really are on limited time, the intermission video must be seconds away from finishing by now – Liam tilts his head forward just enough to brush his lips against Louis's mouth, quick but soft and sure.

There's a ragged and very quiet cheer from the boys around them – quiet, because their mics are being switched on again and they're about to go on again singing about their summer love, and oh god, maybe Liam will get to love Louis in the summer, and the fall, and the winter, and the summer all over again, and wow, he's never identified with Harry's stomach tattoo this much ever before but with that thought and the feeling of Louis's chapped lips pressed soft against his own and the way that their lads are actually _cheering their kiss on_ , it's like butterflies are literally exploding in his stomach.

He mumbles something about the butterflies and Harry's tattoo and Louis starts laughing and then there are three distinct thuds as Niall, Harry, and Zayn latch in around them and pull them in for a massive group hug.

+++

They're all a little too late getting back on stage, and Tumblr and Twitter go crazy trying to figure out why that is. Zayn reads out the best conspiracy theories off his phone that night on the bus – apparently Perrie is texting him even more that she and the girls are finding; those two absolutely deserve each other – and Louis sniggers into Liam's chest at each one, his fingers drawing little designs on Liam's side. Liam runs his hands over and over the small of Louis's back, smelling his hair, which is damp and clean-scented from his post-show rinse-off, and watching the way that Niall is trying to pet Loki slow and steady enough to calm him down to a point where that he doesn't shake off the pink ribbons Harry is trying to tie around his neck.

"They were overcome by the naked glory of each other and started an ill-timed orgy backstage," Zayn reads, and Louis laughs again.

"Now there's an idea," he whispers to Liam, grinning impossibly wide, and ha-ha, that's very funny, but Liam's only just got Louis to himself today; he's not going to share anytime soon.

"Am I not man enough for you, Tomlinson?" he asks, jokingly, and when Louis opens his mouth to respond, his eyes lighting up wickedly, Liam quickly silences him with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this!! 
> 
> title is from this fic's [theme song](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jewel/wordsgetintheway.html)
> 
> [tumblr](http://dulosis.tumblr.com) | [lj](http://el_em_en_oh_pee.livejournal.com)


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